Community News
‘Scam Artists
Gonna Scam’
Conservative group attacking
Ocasio-Cortez hires libertarian
consultant to run polls
www.qns.com I LIC COURIER I SEPTEMBER 2019 23
Photo via Getty Images
BY A MAX PARROTT conservative PAC
based in D.C. cre-ated
for the sole
purpose of unseat-ing
Rep. Alexan-dria
Ocasio-Cortez
recently sent out a batch of antagonistic
fliers to residents in areas of Queens
and the Bronx in her district.
The fliers were distributed during
door-knocking efforts between Aug. 22
and 26 that the PAC is conducting in
the area. Federal Election Commission
filings as of July 31 show that the Stop
AOC PAC, started by Virginia lawyer
Dan Backer, has spent over $50,000,
not just on fliers but on constituent
surveys, too.
The PAC began its mission of con-vincing
residents that Ocasio-Cortez is
working against their interest by buying
digital ads and TV spots and at first
commissioned a poll by an impartial
political research firm. Then they hired
a libertarian advocacy group to take
over the polling in the district.
“I’m a bit of a partisan and I recognize
that, but when we did the poll originally,
I would’ve thought the things that I
care about, other people care about.
But they don’t,” Backer told QNS. “It
was all about Amazon.”
Backer has been involved in dozens
of conservative PACs over the years.
He currently is leading two other orga-nizations
aimed at reelecting President
Trump in 2020. Great America PAC has
raised $1.7 million and the Committee
to Defend the President PAC raised
$3 million.
Based on the results of the initial
poll in March, Backer said that the Stop
AOC PAC has used subsequent polls
in order to quantify the level of anger
among Ocasio-Cortez’s constituents
who didn’t agree with Ocasio-Cortez’s
stance on the Long Island City Amazon
HQ2 deal.
Over the past six months, the PAC
commissioned polls from two different
polling companies to patently different
results.
The first poll it commissioned was in
March from Revily, a political research
company that received 0 percent bias
rating by FiveThirtyEight. The ensuing
polls found Ocasio-Cortez to be 43
percent favorable and 28.9 percent
unfavorable within all registered voters
in the district.
From there on, Backer found a
new organization to conduct its poll-ing.
It hired Mobilize the Message,
a campaign consulting firm aimed
at empowering young libertarians to
run for office.
The two resulting polls, which Backer
claims was the result of between 1,000
and 2,000 completed surveys each,
show the majority of voters — and
Democrats — in her district find her
unfavorable. The most recent one con-ducted
in August shows 31 percent
favorability and 37 percent unfavor-ability
for the progressive legislator.
“Scam artists gonna scam,” AOC’s
spokesperson told QNS in response
to the figures.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
Photo: Max Parrott/QNS
State Senator Michael Gianaris joins Christopher Hanway and April
Simpson at Queensbridge Houses Family Day.
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